I banged around the kitchen in response to her words, and rolled out and cut the dumplings. I could smell Deddy standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his hunting vest caked with mud. Dont cook, I got dinner right here!
In each fist he held a rabbit by the ears. Their paws were pulled in close to their bodies. Their fur, thick tufts to protect them from the cold. He slammed them down on the table. Flour went everywhere, and I controlled my reflexes, moved the flat dough over, and kept cutting.
Mama laughed nervously. Now Loni, you know damn well I aint cleaning that or eatin it. If I was gonna eat like that, I would have stayed down South.
You aint got to clean it. Dessas gonna do it. If she big enough to cook chicken and pork chops, she big enough to see where real food come from. Come over here and get this knife out my pocket. He looked at me, but he focused on my forehead, not my eyes.
Mama said, Go on, Odessa! I used to have to go catch the chickens out in the yard and wring their necks.
When Deddy was drunk and not angry, his voice was high-pitched. If you wont do it, I will. But you gonna hold it. He laughed while he talked, and I knew Mama wasnt going to make him stop. Now that Deddy had more money to throw around, Mama didnt disagree with him, ever, and when things got to the point where he might hit her, she cupped her arm over her stitches to remind him that she hadnt fully healed.
I kept my eyes on him and dusted the flour off my hands. Iremembered what Towanda had said about Aint Fanny, how she picked on me because she knew I would cry or get my feelings hurt, that all I had to do was hide my weakness and act like she didnt bother me.
For the first time, I looked Deddy straight in the eyes and hid my fear with a look of slight amusement. I walked over to the other side of the table, picked up one of the carcasses by the back feet, and held it up for him. He stopped grinning and got serious with me.
He bragged about the last time he went hunting and shot a doe. Huntn is all about the mind. If she gets scared of me, and let me know she scared of me, then she is as good as dead cause Im gonna chase her all over them woods till she give up. But if I come cross a buck in the woods and he flares his nostrils, I might just think twice about whether he gonna lose his fuckn mind and kill me.
He laughed, spitting beer out of his nose and into the new bushy mustache hed grown.
Ever since he had done it to me, he took great pleasure in recounting stories about killing something female. He cut his eyes over at me when he was done, knowing that I was the only one in the room who took his story as a threat. As much as I studied him, I couldnt quite figure out if he remembered me standing in the hallway when he took his knife and cut Lelands throat. Our eyes danced around the vagueness of our memories and our secrets.
Mama spread newspaper on the floor under the rabbit as fast as she could, because Deddy had already pulled up a chair and started cutting around one ankle of the rabbit, then the other. He looked up at me. Yeah, it aint so easy to see where it come from. If you want to eat, you got to kill.
He pinched a tuft of fur on each ankle and yanked downward,but I squeezed the tiny bones and held my grip solid. When he looked up at me, I still held my face frozen, almost smiling.
By the time he had gotten the fur down to its neck, he was tired, and I think the smell of the raw flesh was making him sick. Bernice, why dont you open the damn door? Caint you see its too fuckin hot in here?
Mama kept her back to us and pretended to be doing the dishes. I made myself stay in my bodynot end up somewhere else waiting for it to be finished.
The smell of blood conjured up memories of Lelands blood pouring out of his neck, the puddle growing bigger. It provoked the stench of Deddys sex rising up out of the steam of a hot bath no matter how much soap I used. I swallowed over and over, forcing my mind to smell Granmamas perfume, the Afro Sheen in Baby Jessies new silky hair. I pushed down the lump in my throat and talked to Deddy, so that he wouldnt find satisfaction in disgusting me.
Deddy. Look. You can see all of the muscle.
He nodded and looked grim, pissed at me for not buckling. Yeah, he agreed in contempt, then looked up at me with a new anger. And I think its a girl.
He stuck his knife into where she was separated between the legs and pulled down. Her guts spilled out onto the newspaper and onto his boots, rewetting the mud.
Mama walked out the kitchen door onto the icy back porch to keep from showing her nausea. Deddy stood up, looked past me, and still did not look me in the eyes.
Now you such a expert. Clean this shit up! You hear me? Clean it the fuck up! He pushed me out of the way and mumbled on his way to the bathroom, Fucked up my goddamn boots.
I laid her and the other rabbit on the newspaper together, took them to the backyard, and started digging past the ice into the hard earth with a pitchfork and shovel, working fast to keep myself warm in the bitter November air of West St. Louis. Mama stood on the porch and dried her hands with the dishrag and clutched her incision. I felt like I should apologize to her for having acted so disrespectful, but I was pushed away from that impulse by her choice to be silent.
Dog yanked and yanked, and almost turned his doghouse over to get loose for the raw meat. I kept my back to Mama and didnt let my body shake while I cried and scooped Deddys kill onto the shovel.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I thought over and over, knowing that my life was only as saved as the rabbits, whose stiff carcasses rolled off the shovel and into the hole.
19
Her Hands This Time
For the rest of that winter and the following spring I managed to stay out of Deddy's way. I discovered that the bus could take me anywhere in St. Louis or St. Louis Countyfrom downtown where the Arch cast a shadow on the thick brown Mississippi River to Northeast Plaza Mall, which could only be reached by crossing St. Charles Countya flat, hot expanse of small farms and tornado-mangled trailers. I stole Towanda's bus pass and took Benson and Daryl and Baby Jessie in the stroller. I was too scared to steal anything from a department store but enjoyed the crisp smell of brand-new clothes in Sears and JCPenney. I window-shopped for hours to escape the dreariness I felt inside the house. At the end of the day I bought the boys ice cream with money stolen from Mama's drawer and told them we could go again next week if they kept quiet on the bus.
All summer Lamont and Towanda were excited, getting their stuff ready for going away to college. They had both won scholarships to Mississippi State University, Towanda in band and Lamont in football. Both of them floated in and out of the house like ghosts those days, trying not to do anything to ruin the peace that everybody else seemed to be finding, trying not to ruin their escape from the Blackburn family. After this trip to Mississippi, I might never see them again.
On the Saturday night before our trip, Deddy came home from the tavern drunk, and when Mama wouldnt let him into the bedroom, he kicked down the bedroom door. The next day I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, as tall as Mama now. She kept her back to me while she sipped her coffee. This was the first time since Deddy had Lelands money that Mama saw the old Loni rise back up to the surface. Probably her cheek or bottom lip was swollen. She mumbled, not knowing which of her children stood behind her, I ought to leave that nigga.
I was glad that something had happened to somebody else in the family, that somebody else could see that Deddy hadnt really changed. I felt evil for not pitying her, and answered her with no respect. Why dont you? I asked, rolling my eyes, expecting her to turn around and smack me, but she didnt.
Mama looked out the screen door at Dog, who was pacing around his house. Girl, I aint got time for you. Tell Roscoe to get down here and feed Dog before it gets too hot out for him to eat!
She walked over to the sink and dumped her coffee, beingcareful to keep her back to me. You aint grateful for nothin, Odessa. Now Loni is providing food, and clothes, and a car nicer than most people ever had
I added, under my breath, Deddy or Leland, I guess it didnt matter, long as you did good u
p in St. Louis.
She turned and came over to me. Her lip was swollen. We both stared long at each other, both maintaining a false calm, then her knuckles were magnified in my left eye. My lens crushed into the flesh of my cheek, my nose burned. It had all happened so fast. Another blow, harder than the first, slammed on my ear, and I felt myself weightless as the floor came up to meet me. The linoleum was comforting to my hot cheek. I could hear my own voice scream from far away, Hit her back, hit her back! but I couldnt.
When I got to my feet, I counted inside my headcounted the number of running steps to the basement door, and then the number of steps down the basement stairs and to my bedroom. I opened the door and used my free hand to drag my bed across the cement floor.
I crouched down and pressed my back against the foot of the metal bed and pushed the bed to the door, my feet flat on the wall, my knees locked, my nose and left eye crying red. I screamed for her, Mama! over and over. Her stub legs kicked the door. The tenor in her voice went hoarse, the metal of the bed rattled against my shuddering body. I screamed her name, but the cinder block walls absorbed my voice.
I never heard anyone sing like Mama could sing. Three-part harmony coming out of one mouth. She was sharp and clear, and her tone almost cut you in half. It was nothing like her yelling.
Her singing woke me. Someone had moved my bed back and put me in it. I couldnt open my left eye, and my right only gave me the dim light that made its way through the window and into the basement. The fuzz of Mamas brown silhouette walked back and forth over me. I wanted to reach for her comfort. I hated myself for wanting her, and hated the way I must have looked, swollen by her hands this time.
With Deddy I had learned to stay out of the way, but I had craved Mamas touch since the time I knew words, before walking and crawling. I wanted my mother, and I wanted my grandmother, whose touch was now ten years in my memory. For now I took comfort in the familiar pain of Mamas singing, in the familiar lies that she was conjuring to right the recent past.
Glory-glory Ha la loo yasince I laid my burdens down
I could tell she was smilingsmiling like she smiled in the choir stand at church, like the words were stroking her heart, filling her with light. I heard Benson and Daryl run across the floor, over my head. I raised my heavy hand up to touch and see if my head was all together, or if it was lying broken on my pillow.
LaVern, bring me some more ice. Sleepyhead is finally waking up. Mama clapped her bare feet against the cool cement floor, a rhythm that sent me back into a cold sleep, where Mamas voice came steady.
She done fell down them stairs again, and on command I saw my own body flailing through the darkness and landing in a pool of storm water.
In my sleep that night I heard Granmamas voice say with urgency into the darkness of my mind, Keep your mouth shut, child. Keep your mouth shut!
20
The Last Supper
On the way to Mississippi I hid my swollen face from everybody. I was lonely even with seven sisters and brothers. I wished Gretal hadn't gone to summer school but could be there with me. The two of us would have gone off behind the house and talked about Deddy. Ever since he had done it to me, Gretal rolled her eyes behind his back and whispered to me, "That dirty bastard." The two of us made things better by mocking the way he walked, the way he talked. I missed her.
My sisters and brothers fit well in the new van. They swiveled around in its bucket seats and took turns sitting in the back because it was like a couch. The portable TV aired sitcoms through static, and they laughed and were so content that I felt ill and stared out the window, refusing to talk to anybody.
Mama let Baby Jessie sit with her in the front seat, and only passed him back to me when he needed a diaper change. WhenI complained that I wanted him to sit with me, Mama said out loud into the van, Seem like things got better, and Odessa started actn worse. Some people comfortable with things how they are even if things are bad.
I rolled my eyes. She knew why I had become so disrespectful, but the more I rolled my eyes, the more they all said, Odessa, dont be tryn to ruin everybody elses trip.
I watched the back of Deddys head and thought about Achilles in The Adventures of Sinbad the indentation at the nape of Deddys neck, maybe the crown of his head. Where was his weak spot? Someplace where bone did not cover him. I remembered Uncle Lelands words, When a mans got to have his drink, aint no amount of money or nothn else gonna stand in his way. For the rest of the trip, I calmed myself with the fantasy of taking the beer out of the cooler and hiding it under the seat, leaving Deddy with two hundred long miles to Grandeddys whiskey.
The next day, I quieted my thoughts by counting. I counted the ridges on the butt of Grandeddys rifle, the keys on Granmamas old piano, how many white keys and how many black, the number of broken keys, then missing keys. My tongue counted teeth. My eyes, the number of trees they could see near and far in the flat dust for a mile around the house. First nine, then eleven, counting the tree bench.
The rain in the distance beyond the eleventh tree came down and beat the dirt. A cloud of orange dust moved toward the house. I imagined a herd of cows gone mad. The smell of rain and dirt rolled over me on the porch, then over the house. For a moment I was in the cloud and pushed with the herd to roll the air forward. I ran toward myself, on the porch in cutoffoveralls, dirty blue like the sky. I felt sorry for who I was, and ended my fantasy just before I ran headlong into myself. On the porch I counted the number of drops that had already fallen on the weathered boards of the steps.
I remembered looking at someone in this spot, and me on the bench. It was Granmama, and I was three. I walked off the porch, out into the rain. I wanted to put my busted eye on the other side of the eleventh tree.
When I got past the trees and beyond the ditch where Grandeddy dumped the apple peels and cores, I turned around and saw Grandeddys house, the road to the store, off to the right. My cousin Neckbone tiptoed over wet rocks on his way to the store where he napped all day behind the Coke chest to avoid the heat. Uncle Jos house was smaller than it ever looked from Grandeddys porch.
Everything looked small. I counted three buildings from left to right, then right to left. I wanted to count them in every way before thinking again. But my mind was slipping past the sound of my feet running from the store to the house, the feel of dew damp on the rocks and cold on my feet, the sound of the rope steadying Granmamas casket into the ground. I could smell the dry dusty yellow of Granmamas sunflowers behind Grandeddys house in the spot where now lay dry cracked earth and the remains of some bird that Deddy had shot out of the sky early that morning.
My mind got noisy with rain and the sound of forgotten days in Mississippi. Then I looked at the house and realized that except by car, I had never ventured off Grandeddys land.
I imagined myself a runaway slave who wasnt sure if she should approach the houses or stay brown and safe behind the tree trunks. I lingered there until the sun vanished behind the store, and Mama called everybody for dinner.
That night we all sat on the edge of the porch. The light from rusted buckets of citronella candles drew some of the mosquitoes away from our feast. We held our plates in our laps, and all the kids and grown-ups talked and laughed, while I swung my feet to the rhythm of chirping crickets. I felt the occasional warm breeze surround and separate me from the others.
The next morning was thick with humidity and heat. The air was sweet with cow manure, wet hay, and Grandeddys whiskey. Everything was quiet, even Grandeddy. On most mornings he sat up on his bench in the store, hooked his fat thumb behind the one buckled strap of his overalls, and started Diana Ross low on the jukebox. But even he was quiet behind the distant black eyes of the store.
Mama was the only one awake. I crept into the kitchen, trying to keep the creaky boards from startling her. She half talked, half whispered, I used to walk in my sleep.
She stood at the stove, already dressed in a terry-cloth shirt and jeans. Her hands braced each side of the stove
, and I wondered if she was talking to me, or to the four steaming pots of water.
She went on talking. One morning I got right up out of bed and took Nell by the hand and made her come too. I woke up when Motha came out on the porch. Heifer, where you think you goin!
I hated when she did Granmamas voice. I was sure it wasnt shrill, and I cant imagine her ever cussing. Mama laughed, her rolls of fat moving under her shirt. I sat down at the old metalrimmed table that looked so much like ours, but more worn,and Mama joined me. I didnt want to be this close to her when everyone else was asleep, but I fantasized her telling me she was sorry for hitting me. I fantasized that she would see my swollen face and know that this time she had done it, and maybe she would comfort me and hear my words, Deddy did it to me, and then she would leave himno more hopes that he would be good to us.
Mama snapped the beans for that nights dinner. Whered you go yesterday? She reached and the enamel bowl spun, clanking three times before I answered.
There wasnt anything to do when Neckbone took his nap, so I went outside.
Outside where?
Near the tree bench.
Quit lying. It was rainin.
I went to Grandeddys ditch to get the peels and stuff out. The goats had been finish eatin. I didnt want the rain to get stopped up in the ditch.
Whered you put them? Did you see Loni while you was out there? Her tone was accusing, and I watched tension stiffen her hands.
A hard lump formed in my throat and made it hard to swallow back tears. Mama snuck up on my weaknesses before I could think to hide them. She broke me with her scorn before I could think to defend myself. So I let my mind drift away from her accusing tone.
How did Mama get in off the porch other nights when she sleepwalked? How many kernels of corn were there in the ceramic cornstalk that hung near the back doorseven, eight, nine? How old was she when she painted it? Where was her school? Did Granmama press her hair on Saturday for church on Sunday?
Fifth Born Page 11
